Kryten Comes Back
by Pentium
Summary: This is set between series two and three. It is after Lister has had the twins. This is now finished. I have not spilt this story in to chapters and so the first and only chapter is very long. I thought it would be easier.


Note: Yer, Yer! I don't own any part of Red Dwarf. All of the characters are from Red Dwarf: One of the best comedy sci-fi programme. HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the other one. 

In order to make it easy for readers of this story I have put all of the story in this one chapter, so don't worry! You wouldn't need to click on to another chapter, which would make one of those annoying pop ups coming up.

Thanks for all the reviews so far. I would review some of the ones I have read but I can't figure out how to do it. Well, Enjoy!

Oh! So you know this is set between series 2 and 3. Enjoy!

* * *

On board Red Dwarf:

Lister is laying on his front on his bunk, while reading one of his many comic books and eating a prawn vindinloo.

Rimmer isn't there at the moment so Lister is enjoying the most of this Rimmer free zone but for how long can it last? Who knows? Oh, typed too soon! Rimmer just walked though the door, as I was typing how long the peace would last, and spotted Lister.

"Are you going to slob about reading comics and eating vindinloos all day, you lazy goit!" said Rimmer in his usually annoying Rimmer tone of his.

"Yer! I am! What's wrong with that!" replied Lister who was rather annoyed that Rimmer had come in just as he was getting to the good bit, where the hero blasts all the green blob aliens away to save the girls and then … well then is the bit that he really enjoys and I mean really enjoys.

"Oh! Nothing. It's just that we found Kryten on an asteroid." Rimmer said with a smile since he knew fully well that Lister was getting to the best bit of the comic, but would stop reading because he wanted to see Kryten again, and also knowing that Kryten was scatted into little pieces all over the smegging asteroid.

"What! Why didn't you say that before?" Lister said as he was jumping off the bunk, spilling the rest of the prawn vindinloo on his T-shirt (Lucky there wasn't much left of the vindinloo). Then started walking toward the Drive room, not caring that some of the vindinloo was dripping down his T-shirt on to his trousers. But then he notice that Rimmer wasn't following him, so he turned back to find that Rimmer was peeking down at his comic that he had left open on his bed.

"Rimmer, aren't you coming?" Lister asked

"Oh, er, yes." Rimmer replied frustrated that he had been caught in the act of reading one of Lister's comic books. So therefore had to follow him to the Drive room.

Lister was smiling to himself because he had managed to catch Rimmer reading the comic the Rimmer himself had said "I wouldn't be caught dead reading that smegging trash of a comic book" and he was caught dead reading the "smegging trash of a comic book". Lister nearly laughed at that thought.

"So what were you doing?" Lister asked after the long silent walk to the Drive room, which Lister had enjoyed because it made Rimmer more tense thinking about whether or not Lister was going to say anything about catching him looking at the filth of a comic book.

"Nothing. I was doing nothing." He said and then there was a big pause as Lister gave him that knowing look. So he came up with a quick excuse, "I was just looking at the fact that you had left that filth of a comic book open on the filth of a bed that you sleep on. You know you shouldn't leave things like that about. I live in that room as well you know!"

"Yer, I know." Lister said depressed at the truth of that fact, but then remembered why he had come to the Drive room, "So, where is Kryten, Holly?"

"Down there, Dave, on this asteroid" Holly said as he is showing the asteroid on the monitor in front of Lister.

"I don't see him." Lister said looking at the asteroid which seemed to be covered with bits of metal, "Have you signalled him?" now looking up at the shinely headed computer on the monitor above.

"I thought it would a bit pointless"

"Because he's scatted all over the asteroid." Rimmer said finishing what Holly was saying, in a smug knowing way.

"What?" Lister asked in dismay

"He's scatted all over the asteroid, Dave" Holly said, as if Lister hadn't heard what Rimmer had said.

"What did you think those pieces of metal all over it's surface was?" Rimmer asked so he could point out Lister's stupidness.

"Well, lets get the Kryten pieces on board the ship" Lister said annoying Rimmer's question.

"What are you going to do with the pieces? Play jig-saw with them and hope he works? Lister you have no idea how to put him back together again."

"I know, that's why you're going to help me."

"Help you! Why would I help you put that deranged mechanoids?"

"Just because he spilt some soup on your bed doesn't make him deranged"

"Lister, he didn't just spill some soup on my bed, he poured the whole contents of the pan of soup on my bed! I had to get a new mattress and bedding."

"Well, still it doesn't make him deranged. Any way he may be useful to have around."

"How?"

"He could help you by flying the Starbug, so that you can get away from the ship now and then."

"Lister, he crashed straight into an asteroid on your space bike, which has a warning system on it to stop such a thing from happening!"

"So? You can teach him how to drive."

Rimmer thought about it for a bit, the authority teaching someone how to drive would be great feeling. So he said "So let's get him and put him back together"

"Good. Err … Holly? Can you ask the Cat to help us?"

"Ok Dave" Holly said before disappearing to ask the Cat, and came back about 10 seconds later to say "He said that he would he happy to help …"

"Good."

"… but he is going to be busy looking at himself in the mirror all day"

"Oh! Ok, that just means we need a lot of the skutters" said Lister, thinking (another good idea by the people who brought you beer milkshake) "So let's go pick up Kryten."

"Piece by piece" Rimmer mumbled as he followed Lister out of the Drive room thinking about how long this was going to take, because even with the skutters help (which is barely help at all) it would take a long time.

After one week:

Rimmer is walking down the corridor to Lister and his room and he is very annoyed that they are still collecting the pieces of Kryten from that smeg hole of an asteroid.

"Hi Rimmer. Don't worry it won't be long now, there's only a few more pieces and then we can leave" Lister said as Rimmer came through the door and before Rimmer could ask the question 'when can we leave this stupid smegging asteroid' for the thousandth time.

"Lister, you have been saying that over the past few days. When are we going to leave this smegging asteroid?"

"I have just said that it won't be long!"

"That's not answering the question."

"Rimmer, it will take as long as it will take. So stop acting like a little kid, asking the same questions over and over again and help me do this."

"I am not acting like a little kid; I was just asking a question about how long it will take. (Pause) Help you with want?"

"With this leg." Lister said pointing at a few pieces on the floor.

"Lister, that's an arm!"

"Well that's explains the hand instead of a foot."

"I'm getting the feeling that Kryten will never be like his old self."

Lister continues to fix Kryten with Rimmer telling him what to do. I have a feeling that a fight might be brewing soon.

Meanwhile down on the asteroid the skutters have got the final pieces and are waiting for the door of Starbug to open, so they can go. This unfortunately for them may take a long time because Cat, who is at the controls in the cockpit, has got distracted by his reflection in the windscreen mirror.

"Why did I have to say yes to this depravity? I haven't had my 2nd bath and I've missed half of my 2nd snooze of the day. All for some special chocolate Kripses. It sounds like I'm acting at a dog. (Sniffs) I'm starting to smell like one too! I'm taking a shower!"

Cat runs out of the cockpit in a panic of smelling anything like that foul creature on board the parallel universe Red Dwarf, to the shower and stayed in there for two hours getting rid of the non-existent dog smell.

Meanwhile the skutters have got bored of waiting for the door to open, are now playing catch with one of the pieces they have collected. The piece they are playing with is Kryten's head, which gets dropped a lot and so changes the shape of the head, but mostly the face.

Back on Red Dwarf in Lister and Rimmer's room:

"Rimmer, you are such a smeghead!"

"Well you said you wanted help."

"I know but I didn't ask for the oil to spray all over me!"

"Serves you right for throwing his upper thigh at me!"

"So? It past right though you! It's not like it hurt you!"

"That's not the point! The point was that there was no need for you to try and assault me."

"The 'need' was because you were annoying the smeg out of me by giving me an electric shock in making me connect the wrong wires together."

"Well how was I to know which wire goes to which?"

"You're the one with the manual! That's why!"

Just then Cat's face came up on the screen behind them above the sink, wearing a blue and white striped towel on his head to go with the blue and white dressing gown he was wearing.

"Hey! You monkeys gonna stop arguing?"

Lister and Rimmer turned round to look at the screen.

"Oh! Hi Cat!" Lister said surprised by the interruption, "Cat? How did you get on Holly's screen?"

"Well, I pressed this button like th…" and then his image disappeared from the screen, but a few seconds later he came back on, "…easy!"

"So, what do you want?" Rimmer asked, rather annoyed that he hadn't found out how to do that first, "We are rather busy you know!"

"Err…yer! Those little robot thingies …"

"Skutters" Rimmer corrected

"Hey don't correct me! Well, anyway those 'things' have finished."

"That's great!" Rimmer said excited that they could finally go.

"So you're coming back now?" Lister asked happy that he could now finish Kytren.

"No"

"No!" Rimmer and Lister cried in unison.

"I don't know how to fly this big huge bug shaped thing."

"Starbug" Rimmer corrected him

"Hey! Will you stop correcting me! I hate it when you keep on correcting me!"

"Cat? If you can't fly Starbug, how did you get it to the asteroid and land?" Lister asked

"Well, Holly did it." Cat answered

"Why can't you get Holly to bring you back?" asked Lister

"I tried, but Holly transferred back to the ship when I was having my third shower"

"He did?" Lister asked surprised by the news

"Yes and the only ones I can get to talk to are you."

"That's strange. Holly?" Lister said puzzled

There was no answer.

Lister looked at Rimmer as if he would know what was going on, which was as much use as ingrowing turnip. But still Rimmer took the chance to take charge and so shouted "HOLLY! … HOLLY!"

But nothing happened.

So Rimmer turned to Lister and said "What the hell has happened to the goit? He should be here or at least answering to our calls."

"So how are we going to bring Cat back to the ship?" Lister asked

"Yer, how I am to get back? I need to get back soon because I only have ten suits with me!" Cat said from the monitor

"Why are you asking me?" Rimmer asked

"Good question." Lister said and looked up a bit in thought, to see the H on Rimmer's head, "I've got it! Cat can you stay where you are?"

"Do I have a chose?" Cat asked

"I guess not." Rimmer answered before following Lister, who was already out the door.

"Hey where are you going?" Cat asked, but they were already gone, "Great!"

Then Cat disappeared from the monitor, which turned it back to a normal, ordinarily mirror.

Walking down a corridor:

Rimmer finally catches up to Lister, wondering what the plan is, 'probably thought out very badly and may not work, therefore cause so sort of problem.'

"Lister, what are you doing?" Rimmer asked a while after catching up to him

"I'm going to the Hologram Suite" answered Lister

"Why?" asked a nervous Rimmer

"I'm going to transfer you to the bug"

"You know how to do that?"

"Yer …well sort of. I read the manual"

"Oh great! The first book you read is the manual about how I work."

"Hey! I read books! Not many, but I read books!"

Rimmer looked at him unconvinced at they walked in to the Hologram Suite.

"I don't want you to transfer me. Something could go wrong."

"Nothing will go wrong."

"Why can't we wait for Holly to answer our calls, so he can help us?"

"Because the Bug went out with enough oxygen for seven hours and six of those hours have gone."

"How do you know?"

"I talking to Holly about the Bug before it went to the asteroid."

"Oh! But Holly could come back before the oxygen is gone."

"Yes exactly, 'could'. So that is why it has to be done."

Rimmer went quiet, trying to think of a way round this problem or someway to stop the danger to him in Lister's plan. But as usually he hadn't come up with anything by the time Lister plan was under way.

"Ok, I think this should do it." Lister said before pressing a few buttons

"You Think!" Rimmer said in dismay before he disappeared

Lister looked at where Rimmer had been, with a smile on his face because it had worked, but then Rimmer walked though the door making Lister's smile drop.

"So much for your thinking. I ended up in the corridor." Rimmer said annoyed at the incompetence goit at the controls that keep him running.

"I was just testing, to see if it would work." Lister lied

"The next time you are 'testing' I might end up flowing about in space." Rimmer said unconvinced by Lister's lie.

"I'll get it next time." Lister replied as he was trying to work out what went wrong the first time.

"The next time!" Rimmer said scared by what would happen the next time

"I've got it." Lister said and then pressed a few buttons again

"Nnnnnnooooooooo!" Rimmer screamed, and he was gone.

Luckily the second time had worked and Rimmer reappeared on Starbug to greet Cat with the end of his scream.

Cat span round on the chair in the cockpit and went in to the midsection to investigate what the sound was.

"Oh, it's you! The most unfashionable man of the century!" Cat said not liking this plan to get him back to the ship so far because Rimmer was ruining his style.

Rimmer just looked at him and thought "Goit!"

"So why are you here?" Cat asked

"Well since I am the only one out of the two of us you knows how to fly this thing, my guess is that I am here to help you."

"So you are going to fly this? That fine with me, go and fly me back. It's been enough work sitting in there waiting for those robot thingies to do their job."

"No, you pointy teeth goit! I'm here to instruct you how to fly back to the ship."

"I don't do work."

"You've got less than one hour of oxygen left."

"Ok, where do I start?" Cat said rushing in to the cockpit, "I don't want to deprive the universe of the most gorgeous Cat in history."

Back on Red Dwarf:

Lister has gone in to the Drive room to find out what has happen to Holly.

"HOLLY! HOLLY!" Lister shouted for the thousandth time, it was hurting his throat shouting Holly's name and so his sat down on the chair front of one of Holly's monitors.

He then looked at the monitor to find a picture of Holly on the screen with a recorded message from him saying "Sorry, Holly is busy right now, so please leave a message after the beep … err … beep!"

"Holly, I've been trying to call you for ages. What are you doing?"

But instead of an answer the recorded message started again, "Sorry, Holly is busy right now, so please leave a message after the beep … err … beep!"

Lister sighed and as an answer to the sigh the recorded message started again, "Sorry, Holly is busy right now, so please leave a message after the beep … err … beep!"

"HOLLY!"

But once again the recorded message started again, "Sorry, Holly is busy right now, so please leave a message after the beep … err … beep!"

Realising that he was getting nowhere and so all he can do is wait for Holly to reappear his bold shiny head of his, so therefore he might as well do something useful. So he decided to go back to his room to fix Kryten even though he didn't really know how.

Back on the Starbug, in the cockpit:

Rimmer is sitting in the co-pilot seat finishing off the basic instructions for flying the Starbug to the Cat, who in sitting in the pilot seat.

"So, did you get all that?" Rimmer asked

"Yes, but I didn't understand any of it." Cat answered

Rimmer sighed and looked up, thinking to himself "What a stupid goit!"

Cat looked at Rimmer with distaste and decided to try to fly the bug without his help. "I mean it can't be that hard to do. If Lister can do it so can I" Cat thought.

So he pressed the red button next to the steering wheel, which made the Starbug speed forwards.

"Hey! What are you doing!" Rimmer asked, scared of dieing again

"Flying this thing before I die due to lack of oxygen, while I'm trying to figure out what you are saying. I need to make sure my good looks live on longer than twenty minutes. Also, I'm not in the right suit to die in."

Rimmer couldn't say any more because he was suddenly too terrified because Cat had decided to do a loop-d-loop. It turned out Cat was a natural flyer and was having fun flying Starbug. Cat said mostly to himself "This isn't work at all, it's fun!"

Rimmer turned his head to Cat with raised eyebrows and a scared expression.

Cat got back to Red Dwarf with ease and landed Starbug smoothly with style.

In Lister and Rimmer's room some minutes later:

"I don't understand it!" Lister said scratching his ear wondering how it could of happened, "How can it fix it's self? It's impossible!"

"What's impossible?" Rimmer said walking in to the room after his terrifying ride back to Red Dwarf, vowing he would never again fly in Starbug with Cat at the wheel.

"Oh! Your back!" Lister said turning round in surprise

"So, what's impossible?" Rimmer asked again annoying Lister's remark

"Oh, I came back to fix Kryten and found the legs and arms had reattached in the correct places and some of the wires have been rewired. I don't unstand it!"

"Maybe he fixed himself."

"Whatever, maybe it was a skutter"

Rimmer doubted that, but said nothing see that there seemed to be no other way.

A skutter then came in though the door with a very battered head, which Lister then took and looked at the new face on the head.

"Hey! What happen to his face? He looks more like a chew rubber tip of a pencil than ever before."

"So not much has changed." Rimmer said

"Are you sure this is Kryten?"

"Yes, Holly checked the name in the programme in the bits with the replacement bits Kryten had left here."

"Kryten left replacement bits here? How come I didn't know?"

"There was no need for you to know"

"Well since the head has been messed up, maybe I should check the replacement bits" Lister said a bit annoyed Rimmer hadn't told him about it before. So with that he left the room with Rimmer in tow, who finally told him that he was going the wrong way after they had been going the wrong way for half an hour.

After another half hour they got to the room with the replacements bits. It was next door to Rimmer and Lister's room.

"Why didn't you tell me it was here sooner" Lister said annoyed

"I guess, I forgot" said as if innocent

Lister just stared angrily at him for a few seconds.

"Ok, so where are the replacement bits?" Lister asked

Rimmer looked past Lister to only thing in the room, a big box with Kryten 2x4b written on it in big letters, and said sarcastically "I think they're in there, for some reason".

Lister therefore turned round and looked down to the box and opened it with a loud creak.

"At last!" a voice said from the box

"How light it is!" said another

"It blooming great!" said a third

Lister looked at Rimmer puzzled as Rimmer stepped forward to look, who when looked in the box turned to face Lister with a puzzled expression.

"Hey, what do you want?" the third voice asked, with a rather northern accent.

"Don't be rude, spare head three." The first one said

"Mmm..." Lister said hesitating "…I was hoping to replace Kryten's head because it had been bashed about a bit…" he looked in the box a bit more to be somewhat surprised by the fact all the heads look like the head under Lister's arm. "…But I guess I it would be useless seeing that you all seem to be damaged as well."

"The only one here that is damaged is spare head three." The first one said

"I'm not! It's just some droid rot and my wiring is a bit bandy, due to my nanobots refusing to work any more." Spare head three replied

"Well you did insult them." Spare head two said

Rimmer then coughed to regain they attention and said "So if you're not damaged, why do you look so different to how Kryten looked when we first met him?"

First spare head replied, "The reason for that was because there was a nanobots riot, which resulted in them making changes to him to make them happier, and us being locked in this box."

"What are nanobots?" Rimmer asked

This time spare head two answered, "Nanobots are little robots that fix us and maintain our workings. Also, they make a little beep beep noise."

"So that's why Kryten seems to be being fixed miraculously?" Lister asked

"Yep!" the third spare head replied

"And Kryten doesn't need a new head?" Rimmer asked

"Nope!" the third one said

"All you need to do is put the head back on the body and flick the on/off switch in side on." The second one said

Rimmer and Lister walk back to their bedroom:

"Well, I guess I'll put this head back on his body then." Lister said before he even looked at Kryten

Rimmer who was looking at Kryten said "Errm…Listy!"

Lister looks at where Rimmer is looking.

"Woooohhh!" Lister exclaimed

"Yep, those nanobots are fixing him!" Rimmer said,

Just as Rimmer had finished that sentence the Cat came in the room wanting his Krispies and to show off his new flashy suit.

"Aaaarrrrggghhh!" The Cat screamed as he came in doing a fancy spin to show the suit off well, "Hey! Wants wrong with you two monkeys?" then said, "So where's my Krispies?" not caring to get an answer to the first question.

After not getting an answer he span round to see what they were looking at behind him.

"What the…? Where's its head?" he asked staring at an 8 foot tall body standing in the middle of the room

"Under my arm" Lister said, making Cat turn round to look at it

"Well, that's not going to fit. You sure that's the right head?" Cat said

"It's the right one, but it seems it won't be able to fit any more" Lister replied

"You Think!" Rimmer said sarcastic

"So what happened to the body?" Cat asked

"Well, the Nanobots were meant to be fixing it but it seems they went over the top" Lister said

"You Think!" Rimmer said sarcastic still

"Hey Monkey! Will you stop saying the same thing?" Cat asked

"Hey! Look at that!" Lister said still staring at the Kryten body

They all look round to see the body shrinking down to normal size

"How strange!" one of them said, but which one no one really knew

"Who said that?" Rimmer asked looking at Lister

Cat was also looking at Lister and thinking "I've never heard his voice sound like that".

"Sirs?" the voice said

Cat, Lister and Rimmer looked under Lister's arm to the disembodied head

"I think you should put my head back on now." The head said

"Err, yer." Lister replied and placed Kryten's head back on his body

Kryten then adjusted his head with his hands and then said, "What happened, sirs?"

"We were about to ask you the same question" Lister answered

"All we know is that you crashed the space bike directly in to an asteroid" Rimmer said

"Searching memory files" Kryten said, "Ah, I found the problem!"

"What is it?" Lister asked

"I don't know how to drive and I panicked"

"Remind me never to let you steer this ship" Rimmer said and then, "On second thought, you probably do better than Holly. Speaking of Holly, did you find out what happened to him?"

"No, just an answering machine"

"Hey! Monkeys! Which one of you is going to get my Kripsies?" Cat interjected

"Oh! Sorry Cat" Lister said and made Cat his Kripsies, but end up pouring the milk down his front when …

"Hi! I'm back online!" Holly said appearing on the screen (which is normally a mirror), "Do you like the hair?"

"Holly!" Rimmer and Lister said in surprise

"Yep!" Holly replied

"Hey, aren't you the computer chick from the parallel what's it place?" Cat asked and then to Lister, "Hey! You're spilling the milk on the floor!"

"Don't worry sir! I'll clean it up" Kryten said as he seemed to get a mop with in seconds and started to clean the mess.

Later that day Lister and Rimmer moved to new quarters so Kryten could clean their room, but then decided to stay in the new quarters instead because it was much nicer.

Cat found that Kryten made better Krispsies and didn't use gone of milk which had stayed in a locker for over 3 million years.

Holly had found new hair styles, which she could now do that she couldn't when she was a man. But decided to stay which the same style as Hilly and maybe grow it now and then to see how it looks.

Kryten was just blissfully happy with clean some of the ship, getting the nanobots to repair him to normal cleaning mode instead of madness cleaning mode, leaning how to drive with Rimmer and visiting his heads.

* * *

Well, that's the end of that story. But you may have noticed that I didn't mention Lister having the Twins. Sorry about that, but he had them before this whole story happened. Also, the reason for the Prawn Vindinloo at the beginning is because of the episode "Future Echoes", Lister had never had one before and so he's having one. 

If you are wondering what a Prawn Vindinloo is like: "It's Yummy!", but a chicken vindinloo is "Brutal!"

Hope you enjoyed this story and that you will leave feedback about it. Thanks!

Ps: Sorry for the wait. I had finished my idea, but I broke the computer and the insurenace company took three months to fix it.


End file.
